The Ursula K Le Guin Readalong - City of Illusions
Publisher – Ace
Published – 1967
He is a full-grown man, alone in a dense forest, with no trail to show where he has come from and no memory to tell who or what he is. His eyes are not the eyes of a human. The forest people take him in and raise him, teaching him to speak, training him in the knowledge and lore of the forest, but they cannot solve the riddle of his past. At last, he sets out on a perilous quest to find his true self—and discovers a universe of danger.City of Illusions is a part of the acclaimed Hainish Cycle, set in a galaxy colonized hundreds of thousands of years ago by a variety of humanoid species. Since the golden age of the League of All Worlds, Earth, like the rest of the known worlds, has fallen to the Shing, who rule through subtle mind control. Scattered groups of humans endure in a state of paranoia and semibarbarism. Is there one who can stand against the Shing?
We are used to science fiction and fantasy to be having some form of long journey. It shows the varied nature of the world or universe the story fits in and of course the characters too go on a journey of character – often they will not be the same people we met in Chapter 1. For Ursula K Le Guin’s third novel City of Illusions we have an interesting spin on this with a tale of a journey, but the aim initially here is to discover identity.
Far in the future the Earth is now no longer the shining jewel of civilization but a fractured world of different communities living under mysterious rulers. In the world countryside is found Falk. A grown man with no memories of anything. A kindly community spare him his life and slowly teach him language and the history of the world, but Falk is consumed by who he really is. A trek to the city of the rulers of the earth is required. But Falk will get to see what the Earth now is and discover secrets with huge ramifications fr the future of the world.
After two novels I found fairly weak this was a big step up. Le Guin has reduced the fantasy in an SF environment world and instead here is a more standardised dystopian setting – a bright Earth now turned backwards in war. This time though rather than explain everything up front which weakened the story here like Falk the reader is plunged into the ‘present’ with little context. This story technically falls on from the events of Planet of Exile but that isn’t explained until much later and you’re probably better off going in cold.
What works about his approach is we get to see the world through Falk’s eyes and not as a more intelligent observer. Instead, le Guin throws at Falk a series of cultures – a benevolent community, vicious marauders, unwelcoming townships, kingdoms run by a weird madman and finally the traditional hi-tech city hiding in plain sight. We get a ruined Earth and yet one with weird wonders – animals that speak telepathically telling you not to kill them! We see the use of cultures and exploration of them again being raised and its interesting. There is often a tendency for SF to just have binary locations, but this is more nuanced idea that if a civilisation falls then you’ll have different types of structures develop and technology is at different levels. It is a sharper take than the previous two stories which I enjoyed a lot.
The character of Falk is a much more interesting and vulnerable character than we’ve met so far. The ‘main character with amnesia’ plot is a classic for a reason’ it pulls us in with a mystery and allows us to act in surprise too. Falk is kind, determined and has moments of ruthlessness all suggesting something about his true identity. When we meet the eventual City Falk’s mystery and the City are entwined really well and it is an unusual final challenge focused less on battles and more identity and truth. After two novels more ending in climatic battles this feels a lot more interesting.
What though didn’t work is the pacing. This is not a long novel, but we skip a few stages of Falk’s journey and are told what happened previously in a catch up which doesn’t really work. The City section is right at the end and there is a little too much exposition and then suddenly a rapid-fire conclusion setting up an even bigger story which isn’t really explored more just dropped on the last few pages. It’s a much bigger novel-sized shoe-horned again into a much smaller page format and while Le Guin here is much better at pacing the story than I’ve found so far this still isn’t quite hitting the mark.
Overall, this is the most interesting of the three so far but still likely not a story that will be a must read again for me going forward. Next up my first trip to Earthsea!
